Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Post concert depression// Ed Sheeran at the O2

*WARNING: contains concert spoilers!*

How cool are these tickets!? My thumb is covering the tiny Ed.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind when I say this, Ed Sheeran is a lyrical genius. Not only is he a lyrical genius but a performing genius, a crowd-pleasing genius and and all round genius genius.

Last night was one of the best nights of my year so far, I traveled up to London with a close friend to watch Ed Sheeran and I can honestly say It couldn't have been better.

I was slightly apprehensive as to whether or not Ed would be able to fill the O2 arena, after all he is just one man and his guitar (plus a loop pedal but we'll talk about that later) however, I was blown away by the way he had the crowd completely gripped and engaged. To my own experience, he actually did this much better than a particular popular boy band playing on the same stage, a couple of years ago.

Unlike many artists, Ed Sheeran didn't need any fancy band or backdrop. He simply started his set by walking onto stage, adjusting his guitar and jumping straight into the opening song- I'm a mess.

From there, It only got better. I actually found that he sounded better live rather then pre-recorded on the radio, which is the opposite for many artists!! At concerts he tends to hold the notes longer, rap faster and add random songs into his own music. For example, In the middle of don't, he had us singing,'these girls ain't loyal!'

And when we weren't screaming at the top of our lungs, we were waving our arms to a slow song, such as thinking out loud.

Another great thing is the variety of songs he included. He didn't do the annoying thing of sticking to his most recent album, he went right the way back and sung songs for everyone and it's things like that that stick in your head,

BY FAR my favorite part of the whole concert was a little moment when Ed was talking about 'a band that he had recently be touring with in Northern Island', he mentioned that he considered these people best mates and had managed to drag one of them down to London to play for us. He then announced, no less than, Nathan Connolly from Snow Patrol!!

The place erupted with cheers and when they announced that they would be singing chasing cars together, I could have exploded with happiness. That song is one of my favorites on its own but Nathan and Ed harmonised perfectly, and made it even better. I was on the verge of tears right at the very end, on the last two lines, Ed and Nathan stopped completely and left it completely to the audience. Hearing a whole arena of people, singing the same song at completely the same time with such passion in their voices is one of the reasons why concerts are one of my favorite things, ever. I found this video of Chasing cars, if you skip right to the end, you will see what I mean. Absolutely breathtaking.

After the encore, it was sadly time for the last song. Of course, Ed went out with a bang with sing. Every one was on their feet dancing and singing at the top of their lungs. Right at the end, he told us to, no matter what, carry on singing. He slowly put down his guitar, danced a bit and then walked off stage to end the concert! We sang him off stage and, as the lights went up, I felt absolutely on top of the world.